Bitcoin in Doldrums On Most Exchanges, But Booming on WEX

Although bitcoin is trudging sideways on most exchanges, it’s booming on at least one. But there’s a footnote to that.

The WEX exchange reported a legacy bitcoin (BTC) price yesterday afternoon of $5,011.00000000. WEX saw $11,917,900 of bitcoin change hands. That single-coin price would be an all-time high for legacy bitcoin.

WEX was formerly known as BTC-e, recently undergoing a relaunch and name change. That’s because the platform is trying to distance itself from an alleged former employee, Alexander Vinnik , who was arrested in July by Greek authorities acting on behalf of the US government. Vinnick was charged with money laundering, fraud, computer hacking and drug trafficking. His alleged role at BTC-e/WEX is murky – the exchange denies any association. But the US government identified him as the “operator” of the BTC-e exchange when it brought charges, something Vinnick himself claimed at his first hearing after being arrested.

Vinnick was also wanted by his native Russia on fraud charges at the time of his arrest. Both the US and Russia claimed he laundered some $4 billion through BTC-e, causing the exchange to be shut-down by authorities in July. It re-emerged under the new WEX name in mid-September. Its functionality and trading options resembles the old BTC-e, but WEX claims it is unrelated to the old company. All of its former users have been ported over to the new WEX, which claims it will abide by anti-money laundering and know-your-customer rules.

Away from the WEX boomlet, legacy bitcoin clocked in at $4,300 per single coin at mid-day, per Coinmarketcap.com, about two percent below yesterday’s $4,400 level and staying within its narrow range of the last several days.

Ethereum’s ether was up slightly to $297, up percentage points from yesterday’s $294, but that was the lone good news.

Losers on the mid-day market included Bitcoin Cash ($414), Litecoin ($52), Ripple XRP ($0.202907) and Monero ($90), all down two percent or less. Dash took a big hit, down more than six percent to $293.

The Block Tribune Volatility Index, which measures price swings in bitcoin, reflected the torpor. It was down to BTVI 47.0 indicating a below-average day over the last 24 hours.

TODAY’S 24-HOUR BITCOIN STATISTICS

Bitcoin market highlights for the 24 hours ending October 3, 2017 at 3:00 pm U.S. Eastern Time

The highest price seen was $5,011.00000000 on the WEX exchange at 3:54 pm yesterday. WEX saw $11,917,900 bitcoin change hands.

The lowest price seen was $4,216.26000000 on Bittrex’s exchange at 9:18 am today. Bittrex’s 24 hour volume was $24,918,800.

The average price on the surveyed exchanges, as weighted by volume, was $4,338.83.

Volatility was a bit lower than average, with the BlockTribune Volatility Index coming in at 47.0. A higher number indicates greater price volatility with 50 describing an average day.

These statistics were consolidated from 11 different exchanges. It includes only USD/BTC trades and only on those exchanges that had at least 1% of the total volume of USD/BTC trades during the measurement period.